Initial trust establishment between computing devices is a fundamental challenge in cryptography. In general, trust establishment involves authenticating the identities of devices that have never been connected in a pre-existing secure environment. Complex security and cryptography solutions have been employed by skilled individuals, for example, an Information Technology (IT) administrator, in sophisticated environments, such as a corporate computing architecture. However, manageable authentication methods for the general public are essentially missing from the consumer electronic device domain, for instance, for establishing a secure connection between a smart phone and a tablet computing device, two smart phones, or a laptop and a personal digital assistant (PDA). Although developers have attempted to provide security protocols for the general public, including Wi-Fi Protected Setup and Bluetooth pairing, they have essentially proven unreliable and prone to security defects. Thus, as consumer electronic devices, such as mobile computing form factors, have increased in processing power and functionality, a straightforward and effective protocol for securely connecting these devices remains elusive.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.